This invention relates to an ink jet recording element. More particularly, this invention relates to an ink jet recording element containing treated inorganic particles.
In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An inkjet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-forming layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
It is well known that in order to achieve and maintain photographic-quality images on such an image-recording element, an ink jet recording element must:
Be readily wetted so there is no puddling, i.e., coalescence of adjacent ink dots, which leads to non-uniform density
Exhibit no image bleeding
Exhibit the ability to absorb high concentrations of ink and dry quickly to avoid elements blocking together when stacked against subsequent prints or other surfaces
Exhibit no discontinuities or defects due to interactions between the support and/or layer(s), such as cracking, repellencies, comb lines and the like
Not allow unabsorbed dyes to aggregate at the free surface causing dye crystallization, which results in bloom or bronzing effects in the imaged areas
Have an optimized image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light
An ink jet recording element that simultaneously provides an almost instantaneous ink dry time and good image quality is desirable. However, given the wide range of ink compositions and ink volumes that a recording element needs to accommodate, these requirements of inkjet recording media are difficult to achieve simultaneously.
Ink jet recording elements are known that employ porous or non-porous single layer or multilayer coatings that act as suitable image receiving layers on one or both sides of a porous or non-porous support. Recording elements that use non-porous coatings typically have good image quality but exhibit poor ink dry time. Recording elements that use porous coatings typically contain colloidal particulates and have poorer image quality but exhibit superior dry times.
While a wide variety of different types of porous image-recording elements for use with ink jet printing are known, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have severely limited their commercial usefulness. A major challenge in the design of a porous image-recording layer is to be able to obtain good quality, crack-free coatings with as little non-particulate matter as possible. If too much non-particulate matter is present, the image-recording layer will not be porous and will exhibit poor ink dry times.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,989,687 discloses a printing medium having at least one surface and a coating comprising the polymerization reaction product of the hydrolyzate of an aluminum alkoxide and an organoalkoxysilane. However, there is a problem with this element is that one must first perform an additional step of hydrolyzing an aluminum alkoxide to form an alumina sol before reacting with the organoalkoxysilane.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,252 discloses a printing medium with an ink-receiving layer comprising an alumina hydrate surface treated with a coupling agent. However, there is a problem with this element is that the coupling agents are used to render the surface of the alumina hydrate hydrophobic. Such an element would exhibit poor image quality, as inkjet inks will not wet the surface of the element uniformly.
It is an object of this invention to provide a porous ink jet recording element that has instant dry time when used in inkjet printing. It is another object of this invention to provide a porous recording element that has good coating quality, especially reduced cracking. It is another object of this invention to provide an ink jet recording element that exhibits good image quality after printing.
These and other objects are provided by the present invention comprising an ink jet recording element comprising a support having thereon an image-receiving layer comprising non-silicon-containing inorganic oxide particles, the particles having their surfaces treated with a silane coupling agent having a hydrophilic, organic moiety.
By use of the invention, an ink jet recording element is obtained that has good coating quality, and good image quality after printing.